NaPoWriMo Challenge - April 1 - April 30

[Moochienanu]

23April2021

Planning with You

The future is jotted down in pencil
Over fine lines meant for planning
Pressing harder for the marks,
Meetings you want to be true,
Arrangements you want to keep
Forming deeper indents,
Darker lines across the paper -
Must mean they’re harder to erase

 

[champagne1982]

Mourn No More 23/30

Struggling with guilt
is like to grief;
mourning all the anger
lost when hate dies,
and becomes pity.
A belief that the dead
had no choice, that
the reason for cruel
lies and physical
harm lay outside
control; beyond
their conciousness;
to leave a blind
and abusive emptiness
that nothing, not drugs,
not liquor, not even sex,
could fill up that dark
pit where violence lived.
Now leaving an incongruence
between perfection and sin
turning the angel to fallen;
and unworthy of love.
The idea tarnishes the mirror
of self-perception and sets
an orphan up for destruction,
inside overwhelming sorrow
and unkept promises.
I'm here to tell you
how much you're loved.

 

[Lyricalli]

22/30

I've used a lot of words
said a lot of things
and for years you got me
barely filtered
uncensored
made it safe for me to just be

Now, I'm learning
to navigate road signs and boundaries
choosing edits
fear being too much
mourning my sense of safety

 

[Tzara]

27

He Answers, with a Poem Wrapped
about Some Hibiscus Blossoms

Wishing to see him,
to be seen by him—
if only he
were the mirror
I face each morning.
—Izumi Shikibu

Though awed by the photograph
of your body, unclothed
in the golden wash of dawn,

I would only be able to touch
with light's so slight fingertips.

Is it not better
I am flesh
than mere flat and silvered glass?

 

[Levitating_Bed]

23/30

Manifest Destiny in Eight Lines

There's no place like home
and no business like show
and I think you will find
wherever you go:
That where there's been Westward
for good folks to Ho
what really happened
ain't the story you know.

 

[Angeline]

Grief

Once the pain was sharp.
Over time it softened.
It became smooth
and diffuse like sea glass.

She could hold it then
and consider how light
passed through it.

 

[29wordsforsnow]

25/30

Trust

that is

...a terrible word

...to explain.

For instance, take an apple
and put it down
and go
- oh, you think that's nonsense
but trust me -
if you can expect it to be there tomorrow
without worry and a heavy heart
... that's trust
Well, when it comes to apples,
never trust worms or sheep on the run.

Now, trust...
it's hard to earn, and if earned, it can be wonderful
you can lose it...and thus it can shatter worlds
it can be given or lent...and create such a payback
it can be stolen...and never be returned

What is trust?
Well, if you open that door...and there's
no fear, no hesitance, no turning back(s)
...and you would even leave the door open

Anything else?
if you ask for, it shouldn't be a rhetorical question.
if you have it, why ask for more and more?

But the most trust you can have
comes in giving your life
into someone's hand
and get it back
undamaged
unbroken
uncut

 

[todski28]

I’ve given all those parts of me
I didn’t need
my sweat, my strength
my arms to hold you
and I don’t know if it’s enough
if I’m enough

because the tears are what I imagine
a pipe hit by an explosive might be
mangled
shrapnel scattered every where
scraping up the bits and pieces
that held you together

four rounds of the chamber are empty

except the valve still works

and if giving you mine would fix it I’d beg you take it

but it’s not so simple a fix
and I’m still needed here as well
so I’ll hold on to all I can while
you can’t

and give you everything I have left
everything you need

 

[Piscator]

XXIV/XXX

The Opposite of Dark Matter

Dark matter is thought to be 85%
of the mass of our universe, which
leaves us with the remaining 15%.

All that’s left after s/he said
“Let there be light”​

 

[Remec]

11/30

Beatles Girl

Not sure how or why, but somehow she
manages to hold her head above everything
no matter how dark it gets or how much need

the two of us have together. We merely need
to shoulder on through it all. Me stoically; she
by cuing up one of her old vinyls. The thing

I’ve always understood, if there was anything
to be understood, was that no matter what need
there was to be fulfilled, in her music she

would find it. She holds to one thing: all you need is Love.

 

[Moochienanu]

24April2021

Mirror Maker

This dark room feels like a lonely island
of days spent with curtains drawn
and nights with only a sleeplight
to illuminate a mother’s dawn

This bed feels like a shackle
of arguments had and lost
and relented with only a mattress
directly on the floor to show

This mind feels like a galaxy
of memories swirling illuminated
and fixed with only a single point
anchoring amongst the stars

 

[Tzara]

28

Cadenza Visuale

A music of no sound
save the rustle of clothing,
the air conditioning's
cold and steady sigh,
a cough, a cleared throat
in the audience.
There's plenty of action—
the soloist jerking about
like a contortionist
thrown chained into
the deep end of a pool,
the conductor beating time
like a silent metronome,
the orchestra sitting
tacet, instruments down,
waiting for the struggle
to end with the violinist
drowned or with the harsh
gasps of sound
of his instrument's anxious strings
rubbed again
by the frantic, rosined bow.

 

[Remec]

12/30

Homebound

I smile at the hint of
smoke underlain with spice
that lingers in the air just
inside the building’s foyer,

You’ve allowed the incense
to move from smoldering to
an out and out cinder, again,
making my eyes water, but not
enough to keep me from moving
in your footsteps—muddy tracks
on the hallway rug—that lead me
towards you just as easily as
the soft tinkling of piano keys echoing
from the back of the house;

It wasn’t our song, per se, but one I
can still remember playing at your side,
sitting together on the bench, thighs
rubbing as my fingers found each key in turn,
in the same way my mouth, lips, and tongue
would find your lobes and long nape,
tasting the very sultriness of you,
and drinking it all in

Now I’m home, once more, and
cannot wait to see how
each part of you
fills my senses
all over again.

 

[29wordsforsnow]

26/30 - Utopia

A moment ago, or so
I dreamed, as it seemed

of people that meet
and find delight in
each other's soft embrace
of consent on spending
time in the other's
head and bed

of mutual deals made
in lunch time breaks
filled with options picked
to each other's taste
later on the table
their day's dessert

of bodies wrapped in
everything both like seeing
to come undone soon
and everyone else thinks
that would look good
on me too

of dim lit streets
bright with wide smiles
because they know about
where you go to
and wear a smile
the same way

of being cheered on
sharing a first kiss
by a random audience
thinking both have fun
they could dream about
as well tonight

of poetic words whispered
on dark stairways' landing
reciting their favorite porn
with storylines you do
not fast-forward because
they're too good

of old neighbors' comments
leaning in their doorway
about that's what you
do they did once
too, like a minute
ago or so

of long moments spent
to explore both minds
teaching each other's secret
where to touch and
ask if it does
feel good too

of all the things
done for pleasure to
each other no one
won't tell to anyone
because it was their
both special time

of screams and cries
of passion and joy
off windows and walls
offering sound and lines
for: "That could be
me too, soon."

As it seemed, I only dreamed.
A moment ago, it wasn't so

 

[Lyricalli]

23/30

I feel stupid
in the quiet, scared moments
seconds, minutes, hours, days...
while I wait
when I've dropped my guard
offered up some piece of myself
which may not seem like much
to anyone else
framed as a simple statement
or question
that makes me hold my breath

It never seems to matter
how often I've felt acceptance
the inner voice, deep in my core
expects rejection
dismisses that I'm loved
challenges my trust
and after seconds, minutes, hours, days...
of fighting fear, second-guessing
makes no difference which side wins
in the end
I feel stupid

 

[Remec]

13/30

Muse at Work

The white glare of the empty screen
is at it again,
I can feel the notions and ideas,
if not the actual words,
beating themselves against the inside
of my brain as if they had decided not
to slip their way to fingers,
and thus to the screen, but to await
that moment when they could
spring forth Athena-like as a
full-blown piece
of work.

 

[Levitating_Bed]

24/30

which, you know, is actually everything

everything contains its opposite
and now i'm inside of you and
you move and i move and
that's how we become
each other how we
together become
one thing until
we become
nothing

 

[Remec]

14/30

Togetherness

We,
me...you,
move along
through the days and nights;
hoping it will last forever,
at least, so we pray,
hopefully,
leaving
us.
​

 

[todski28]

25-30

there’s cold tortellini
in the back of my throat
the ambulance reeking off ozone

back there the sound of crickets
and mosquitoes
buzz and chirp by the lake
cool water a balm against
the bursting Aussie sun

jumping from the fallen tree
we took turns
in the shallows

Mum showed up
her signature pasta dish
then took to dive from
the same log we were leaping off

but she dove
deep
hitting the ground

she arose
as if she’d been attacked by a crocodile
half her jaw
hung from clinging meat and gristle


today I saw the glint of her scar

 

[Remec]

15/30

Heaven

Billy swung the door open,
Rae ducked in among the coats,
I followed into the dark

As the door closed, I could barely
hear Billy through the wood,
“Clock’s ticking, man.”

In the short silence of his words,
I could make out the whispered sound
of fabric being slid along skin,
then the smell of Rae up against me

not so much her, as it was the cheap
Avon body spray that was just overdone
enough to make me taste it as well
as smell it—and it tasted a bit past due,
to be honest,

Then she pivoted about, brought her hips
back against me…the coarseness of her hiked skirt
rubbing my thighs and hard on through
my sweats and then, upon my skin as she
rubbed them right to my knees

“It’s only seven minutes, Bobby,
We gonna fuck or what?”

I smiled and chuckled.
“That was rhetorical, yes?”

 

[Moochienanu]

25April2021

Escape

today has become
a caged exotic animal
pacing the perimeter
while the paddock door
sits open behind her

 

[Lyricalli]

24/30

Just Like Riding a Bike

Busted-up knee
road rash on my shin
hand, forearm, elbow
bruises slowly blooming
to color it all in

Reminds of being thirteen
and reckless
laughing off a fall
picking up and pedaling on

Takes a little longer now
to brush off the dirt
assess what hurts
not so reckless anymore
just looking the part

Still laugh
'cause it feels a bit silly
suddenly on the ground
unintentionally

Nothing broken
more wounded than pride
butt back in the seat
just keep riding





*desperation catch-up poetry

 

[Angeline]

23-30

On Cady Road

In August the Monarchs migrate
past the Blue Ridge and Great Smokies.
We see one, then two fluttering

to a pause near the deck where we sit
of a morning, you with coffee, me
with Earl Gray properly soured

with lemon. We sit in the birdcall
morning, surrounded by hickory
trees and the occasional drift

of sweet honeysuckle passing
with the breeze. The Monarchs
are limned in black and orange,

their great burnished wings
small majesty against the surrounding
green mountains and the blue smoke

that weaves across the ridge lines.
Years from now I'll remember
how we marveled at that view

and the quiet joy of simple pleasures.
Today the pain in my broken heart
will feel almost ordinary.

 

[Remec]

16/30

Just Like Riding a Bike

It’d been a while,
long time since I’d seen her,
longer still since we’d
managed to actually get
our shit together enough to
slip off, just the two of us,
and enjoy everything that had
ever made us a couple
to begin with;

I hadn’t even expected her to
be there, not sure why since
both groom and bride had
been her friends as well as mine,
might have been hers first,
come to think of it;

I passed by her without notice of
who she was, right away, but
the lingering scent of her perfume
was still the same as it had ever been,
and I turned back to smile and say hello;

Repeated that scenario at the receiving line,
and again when I hit the open bar,
until, finally, the music started and I asked
if she would dance with me,

And that’s all it took.



Desperation, indeed...think of it as a STC hehehe

 

[Levitating_Bed]

25/30

Picking up the Paint Crew

Parked in the circular drive of the halfway house,
I'd watch them shuffle out of the front door
haggard, wind blown, and forgotten
like losing lottery tickets.

I'd look back at the butterflies and inhale the lilacs
from outside my driver's seat open window.
Hope that scent would ward off the alcoholic sweat
and occasional, leaned in too close, heroin breath
from an almost whispered dirty joke.

It was never a short drive, however far away
the job was, the stale and sour sometimes so strong
it would find it's way onto my own tongue
as if I might have had their night.

It was often too quiet and that was worse,
fm radio sounding further away then it was
in a van full of cautionary tales - the air itself
too sick and shaky for sound to move through.

At the job, and though sometimes half their age
I would decide who could be trusted to climb a ladder
who might be able to cut a straight line with a brush,
and who was only good for scraping and sanding.

Some of them I only ever saw once. Some of them
would tell you their life story before lunch
on their first day. Some of them would never speak
at all unless spoken to. Some came every day for years.

Some had eyes so sad your heart might break
and some were so mean you'd worry more about
your throat than your wallet.
Some of them were tired and trying to stop.
Some of them were tired of trying to stop.

The wrong kind of lack plus the wrong kind of excess,
whatever the story was, I understood from almost
the first day that it was only luck, good fortune, chance
that had kept it from being mine.

And that however it started, whatever the story,
that loop they were trapped in -
chasing oblivion, over and over, only to forget,
eventually creates the need for itself.

But what I remember most, above everything else,
was how they would all laugh. Whenever
someone hit a thumb with a hammer, left a
gash with a blade, a fall off a ladder, had a
nail come through a shoe, a splinter pierce a finger...

And, when I finally figured out that the kind of pain
which goes away is so much funnier than the kind
that doesn't

I started laughing too.






(i had done the five senses challenge - Angie beat me to it but I think we're all thinking that if we keep feeding Remec he'll catch right up!)